Mystic Chronicles is an interesting little title. Originally released on the iOS under the title 'Fantasy Chronicles', this title was picked up by Natsume and completely re-translated before being ported to the PSP. While this was a game originally for mobile devices, the fact that Mystic Chronicles is a classic turn-based RPG made it easy to port to other platforms. With a major translation overhaul and a new audience to appeal to, will this RPG manage to impress in this relative onslaught of similar downloadable PSP games?

In Mystic Chronicles, you follow the story of Lux, a young man who seems to have a lot of bad luck, with all of his hometowns getting destroyed and all. However, it's not all bad for the red-eyed youth, as a Guardian Spirit comes to his aide, and together with the companions he meets, goes forth on a quest that eventually entangles them with the fate of the world.

This plot seems like the standard RPG fare, and it mostly is, but there are enough twists and nuances to keep you interested until the game's conclusion. Also, the characters you meet--old friends and new allies alike--are pretty likeable, and no one's lines really seem overly silly or out of place.

As for gameplay itself, battling is a standard turn-based RPG affair... but two features of Mystic Chronicles set to make the title stand out amongst the crowd: Guardian Beasts and bonds. First, Guardian Beasts are best thought of as extra party members that you cannot directly control. They have HP and stats just like the normal party members, but also have powerful skills to help you in battle. These skills depend on the Beast in question. For example, Lucius tends to have physical attacks, while Grace is pretty much a straight up healer Beast. As they're attacked, they can become enraged, and as such will release their special skill, which could range from a super powerful physical attack to a fulling healing spell. Guardian Beasts are a neat little addition, but you do have to be wary of how their AI is set, or else you could be setting yourself up for a world of pain.

As for bonds, whenever a party member is paired with a Guardian Beast or when two or more party members coordinate their attacks, they increase their bond level. When someone's bond level increases with someone else or with a Beast, they can do more damage with their attacks, or other neat effects. It seems to be a neat addition, but in reality bond levels between Beasts don't level up fast enough to make a difference, and bonds between party members require using pricey special moves, most of which you wouldn't want to use unless you're in a boss battle, if even then. Basically, bonds don't help as much as you would want them to.

Despite not being a standout of the RPG genre, Mystic Chronicles can be fairly enjoyable to play through... as long as you don't mind the grind. This title is pretty grind-y, where the introduction of a new area typically results in you having to do every quest before you're well enough off in order to move on. These quests are rather dull MMO-style affairs, challenging you to beat X number of enemies, get X number of items, or kill a super hard monster. Doing these quests gets you rare items and is your main source of income, but just as importantly makes you go out and grind. Levels do come pretty easily in this title, but the pitiful stat growth for everyone makes it so that a single level rarely makes a difference.

Because of that, you have to rely more on your equipment to survive difficult encounters. Thankfully, Mystic Chronicles has a great forging and tempering system to make sure you're prepared for the fights ahead. Out in dungeons you can gather resources (and a little later make some weird cat creatures help), and for the most part you can use these resources to temper your weapons and armor. Upgrading your equipment leading to branching paths you can take when making your equipment. You want your armor to give you defense against earth magic, or maybe heal you a little every turn? Well, you get to decide that.

When you visit new areas and explore dungeons, you can also find Training Books that'll allow you to make even more equipment. Of course, you can buy the new equipment, but it's incredibly expensive and is far more cost-effective to temper the equipment yourself. Forging and tempering also costs money, though, and for that reason that you'll have to grind through the guild quests in order to really make progress in the game.

If you're looking for a somewhat classic RPG experience on your PSP to enjoy, Mystic Chronicles isn't a bad bet. It's pretty enjoyable for the most part, even though the title really doesn't try anything new. The $14.99 price point might be a bit too high for the non-hardcore RPG crowd, but those who do take the dive will get a 20 hour or so adventure that will surely stay entertaining throughout.

Pros:

+ Engaging story with good characters

+ Tempering and forging equipment is easy and rewarding

+ Enemy sprite work is amazingly well done

Cons:

- Nothing really stands out in terms of gameplay

- The music is pretty boring (barring the normal battle theme)

- The grinding may turn gamers away

Overall Score: 7.0 (out of 10)

Good

Mystic Chronicles is a nice game for RPG fans looking for a solid albeit typical experience, but others may find the grinding too tedious to their liking.

5 Comments

Great review Gaia! Sounds like your typical JRPG game with some good points and nice things. Sad the music didn't get ya and most music JRPG games are pretty good. I tend to fall asleep while grinding a lot, but normal grinding I don't mind lol. I may play this, but not really my cup of tea in terms of what you said in the review. Although never played any of Kemco's games so I should give it a chance someday. I actually ever heard of them lol.

All I can say is I'm shocked that PSP games are still coming out. I know I shouldn't be, since so are PS2 games, but I really think Sony should let (force) it to die and just bump any yet to be released games to the Vita. No doubt this won't happen for a while still, seeing as the PSP is huge in Japan and most of the games being released lately for it are also from there, but I can't help sit and gawk everytime I see another come out

All I can say is I'm shocked that PSP games are still coming out. I know I shouldn't be, since so are PS2 games, but I really think Sony should let (force) it to die and just bump any yet to be released games to the Vita. No doubt this won't happen for a while still, seeing as the PSP is huge in Japan and most of the games being released lately for it are also from there, but I can't help sit and gawk everytime I see another come out

Don't see why they can't have the game in both PSP and Vita. I'm sure that will help Vita sales a lot.

All I can say is I'm shocked that PSP games are still coming out. I know I shouldn't be, since so are PS2 games, but I really think Sony should let (force) it to die and just bump any yet to be released games to the Vita. No doubt this won't happen for a while still, seeing as the PSP is huge in Japan and most of the games being released lately for it are also from there, but I can't help sit and gawk everytime I see another come out

Thing is, almost all of these PSP titles being released are digital only, and for the most part can be played on the Vita, which is probably the only reason we're getting most of these games in the first place. I know Mystic Chronicles specifically had a problem booting up on the Vita for a couple weeks until it was patched, but that's not usually the case with these post-PSP PSP games. What I find amazing is that there's still a physical PSP coming out soon (Sweet Fuse).

Anyway, sounds like it might be a nice little RPG romp, but since it doesn't seem to do anything to stand out I doubt I'd try it unless there was a fairly deep discount on it at some point (like those Atlus games a few weeks ago) because I'm not exactly hurting for straightforward JRPGs at the moment.